Keke Palmer revved up over 'Longshots' role and life in general

Keke Palmer turns 15 next Tuesday, and she's psyched.

"I'm so excited, I don't know what to do," says Palmer.

She says she's changed a lot during her first two years as a teen-ager.

"I'm feeling really different, not only in my career but in my family and just me growing up, period," says Palmer, who has a 19-year-old sister and a brother and sister who are 7-year-old twins. "It's definitely a big change. It's a fun change, though -- a good one.

"I'm getting ready to drive, and boys are coming into my life. There's a lot of good stuff going on."

That includes her own sitcom, "True Jackson," coming to Nickelodeon this fall, and a new movie, "The Longshots," opening in theaters Friday. Palmer stars in the film based on the true story of Jasmine Plummer, the first girl to play on a Pop Warner football team and who led her team to the national playoffs.

Palmer wasn't familiar with Plummer before the movie came along, even though they were born in the same hospital in Harvey, Ill., a year apart (Plummer is a year older).

"I hadn't heard anything about her until I found out about the script, and then I researched her," says Palmer, whose family moved to California for her career when she was 10. She says the movie sticks fairly close to the real story, though a few details have been changed.

One difference is that in the film, her uncle (Ice Cube) has to talk her into playing football.

"It wasn't a situation where he had to really convince her" in real life, says the actress, who had a small role in Cube's "Barbershop 2." "It was something that she and her uncle did, just toss the football around, and he thought she was good, and he asked if she wanted to do it, and she was like, 'Cool, why not?' She always was, like, athletic and stuff."

Palmer, who's been acting since she was 9 and is also making a name for herself as a singer, had no athletic skills before "The Longshots."

"I wasn't into sports, not at all," she says by phone during a publicity stop in Atlanta. "I still don't watch 'em. ... But I love playing football."

Another script invention has Jasmine interested in becoming a model, which does intrigue Palmer.

"I would love to be a model or meet Tyra Banks or do modeling shoots and stuff," she says.

Palmer's interests are more than skin deep. She's active with the "It's Cool To Be Smart" program through the Boys and Girls Clubs, and she's aware that she can have an influence on fans.

"That's one of the reasons why I want to do these kinds of films is because they're so inspirational to young kids, and when I see how the kids react to me or the movies that I make, it makes me feel so happy inside.

"I want to be a role model to them. Some girls -- or boys -- don't have role models that they can look up to in their own home or around them, and I want to be that person if they don't."

Palmer, who won an NAACP Image Award and a Young Artist Award for her performance in "Akeelah and the Bee," has her own role models, including Tyler Perry and Jodie Foster.

"They're able to do all these things and ... it just puts that idea in my mind where if they can do it, then I definitely can do it."

Palmer, who was in Perry's "Madea's Family Reunion" but will not appear in the upcoming "Madea Goes to Jail," has made videos with her friends, and she's honing her skills at writing.

"Before I was not into it, and I didn't really care," she says. "But now I'm very much into writing, and it's a lot easier for me to do. I guess maybe just because, being a teen-ager, I have a lot on my mind."

(Contact Knoxville News Sentinel film critic Betsy Pickle at pickle(at)knews.com.)